Industry Friday: Marcroy Smith- People of Print

This week we were visited by Marcroy Smith ( unsure if i have separated the names correctly) who is an illustrator which was great for myself as an illustration student to see 🙂 He came in to talk to us about his projects and People of Print which was created by Marcroy in 2008. It was created to act as a source of inspiration for everything print related, showcasing artists, designers, illustrators and printers all over the world. They also provide print consultation services and a bespoke screen print service for t-shirts and art prints. They also publish a magazine entitled “Print isn’t Dead”.

He began the talk by speaking of some of his recent clients, including a band named Crystal Castles who approached him to design an album cover, he accepted this under the premise that he was cited by them as the creator, they accepted this but he later discovered they were using his work not only for an album cover but on other promotional material such as t-shirts to which he was receiving no credit for. This is something as an illustrator i need to learn to be wary of, because your work shouldn’t be used without your permission but sometimes it happens and Marcroy dealt with it in an excellent way by asking the Association of illustrators to write a letter stating the legality of the situtation- in which crystal castles were forced to award him damages for using his imagery without permission. This was great to find out because i would not have known how to deal with this situation otherwise. The artwork he created was stunning:

He has also made use of kickstarter in order to fund his projects, currently he is using it to fund the next edition of “Print isn’t Dead” and its great to know that you can ask for help getting started and it does pay off, because he raised £6500 to start the magazine which is a huge accomplishment. Its a magazine made by printermakers to inspire other print makers because it showcases people who are doing things differently in print and trying new methods of making it exciting, in edition it holds interesting articles and interviews and showcases illustrators too. He shared with us that in the next edition there will be some alternative culture articles too so its interesting to see that to stay current and edgy that “Print isn’t Dead” will be expanding its subject matter.

On top of all of his publishing and promotion of print work, he runs print workshops with students and i would love to attend one of these. I haven’t been introduced to alot of print making techniques and his screen prints look vibrant and interesting! He’s created prints for Levi’s during the olympics, the V&A, Mastercard and the design museum among other clients.

After creating People of Print, in order to grow it and gain more experience Marcroy travelled to gain inspiration and this is something i could definitely follow in his footsteps and undertake, because there is no greater inspiration than diversity and his time in New York especially allowed him to begin making a name for himself and putting it out there, it must’ve been an excellent opportunity to network!

Finally, after the talk i went on the people of print website and browsed their directory of illustrators and printmakers and i would certainly like to be represented by a company such as this, the composition of the website itself has given me ideas for my own website to create for present and promote 🙂